Southeast Asian Odyssey – Final Days

Jason McBride was the P-I’s Olympia intern for the 2006 legislative session. Jason traded committee hearings for the bustling markets and urban crush of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The recent University of Washington graduate spent his summer in Cambodia, working as an intern for the Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper. He shared his impressions of the country’s people and politics with Strange Bedfellows readers this summer. This is his last posting. Jason can be contacted at: jasonmcb@msn.com
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By JASON McBRIDE

I just got back to the U.S. a couple of days ago after two fairly rigorous weeks of travel that included 32 hours on the bus, more than 30 by train, 17 hours in the air, eight hours by motorbike and three hours by boat. My route took me from Phnom Penh to Saigon, Saigon to Hoi An (in central Vietnam), Hoi An to Hanoi, Hanoi back to Saigon, Saigon back to Phnom Penh, Pnomh Penh
to Siem Reap (to see the Angkor temples) and Siem Reap to Bangkok, where I caught my flight back to Seattle via Tapei.

It seems trite to say that it’s strange to be back in Seattle after spending three months in Southeast Asia, but it’s true. Compared to the dusty chaos of Phnom Penh, Seattle feels like an empty parking lot. Being completely out of money, I have found it pretty inconvenient that meals cost more than 50 cents, and I don’t think I can live off Vietnamese sandwiches and Dick’s Deluxes forever.

Am I happy to be home? It’s hard to say. I think I’m shock, and I’m still suffering from jetlag, so I’m pretty out of it. It’s good to see my friends again, but since I’m not working, I don’t really know what to do with myself. I’m sure anyone who has spent a substantial portion of time in another country has had the same experience as me.

I had only one night in Phnom Penh when I came back from Vietnam because I wanted to catch the bus to Siem Reap the following morning. I had to say my goodbyes to the family I was renting from, which was pretty sad, as we had become fairly close. The mother had prepared some of the best meals I had eaten in Cambodia, and I had spent many nights learning about Cambodian
history and culture from her four sons, who all still lived at home. There were four sons in the family, ranging from 18 to the mid-twenties, and the 18-year-old twins had bought me a pair of jeans and a sweater as going-away presents. I brought the family a vase from Vietnam, which seemed like pretty inadequate compensation for the kindness and hospitality I had received from
them.

I also had to say my goodbyes to the tuk tuk drivers I had befriended. A tuk tuk is a motorbike with a roofed trailer in the back with enough room to seat about four western tourists, maybe six Cambodians. I spent many nights hanging out on the corner of Sisowath and 178th, along the river, where they parked their vehicles and vied for customers as they exited the profusion of
bars and restaurants along that touristy strip. Unfortunately for them, business was usually slow enough so they had plenty of time to engage in cultural exchange, which degenerated into crass jokes for the most part. Since these guys interacted with tourists everyday, their command of English was pretty good. They’re also pretty good at finding secondary forms of income, supplementing their meager one or two dollar fares by acting as middlemen for drug dealers
and brothel madams.

I stopped by the Cambodia Daily to pick up copies of articles I had written so I could use them for my portfolio. It was sadly abrupt, because I hadn’t had the time the day before to go out with anyone for one last time. So I said my goodbyes to the few staffers who were working that Sunday. I gave them my AP Stylebook – a newsroom staple – since it would probably cost a fortune to have one shipped over there. I think my 2004 version was probably the most up-to-date copy they had.

From Phnom Penh I rode the bus to Siem Reap. It was the most picturesque ride I have taken in Cambodia. The countryside was in full effect that day; thatched houses, water buffaloes wading through rice paddies, slender palm tree trunks suspended in the horizon. It was like my first day in Cambodia all over again. After all the seediness and poverty and corruption I had witnessed in the past three months, I was reminded of the unpretentious beauty of that country. It is a landscape forged by the necessary act of growing food, and the scenes I saw that day probably weren’t that different from those of a century ago.

I don’t want to devote much space to the Angkor temples, as they have been celebrated over and over by writers with better descriptive powers than mine. I’ll just say that they are well worth the visit, and what struck me was the landscaping. Considering how spread out everything is, and the
thousands of water bottles that are disposed of every day, it’s amazing how well taken care of the grounds are. It’s the most manicured place in Cambodia. It’s quite serene, as well. There are many tourists, but there are also many temples, so they get spread out well enough. And even though there are hundreds of vendors waiting to extract your money in exchange for postcards and silk, they cannot work in the temples themselves. But be prepared when you sit down to eat lunch; children who will try to bet you the sale of one their mini bronze Buddhas if they can tell you the capitol of your home state will descend upon you and make a relaxing meal
impossible.

I was only able to spend one day at the Angkor temples due to one of the biggest embarassments of Cambodia’s infrastructure. The distance between Siem Reap to the Thai border is less than 100 miles, but it takes about seven hours to make the trip. The road is ridiculously bumpy, so the bus
travels maybe 20 mph the whole way. I was sitting in the back seat, and we hit a couple of nasty ruts that sent me flying. It’s such a scam because only one airline flies from Siem Reap to Bangkok, so unless you want to pay $150, you’re just going to have deal with having your kidneys knocked around. I can’t help wondering if the airline pays the government NOT to fix the road in order to corner the market on less masochistic travelers. But I needed to make sure I reached Bangkok in time for my 5 pm flight, and even though the bus leaves around 7 am, it still won’t make it, so I had to leave a day early to make sure I would get there on time.

My one day (actually, 20 hours) in Bangkok consisted of a mild-mannered night on the town with a woman from Singapore whom I met at the guesthouse after I had checked in. She was gracious enough to wander through the rain with me in my quest for Pad Thai, which I guess isn’t something people generally eat at 11 at night. We found it after a couple of hours, but by then I had had to settle for a mild noodle-and-fishball soup in a dingy all-night diner. Eventually the rain let up and we sat down for a drink at a sidewalk bar, where we snacked on some saucy chicken laab accompanied by raw cabbage and green beans. The other clientele seemed to be made up mainly of prostitutes, some with western “boyfriends.” Transvestites (“ladyboys”) of hulking proportions in mini skirts and high heels passed by our table as we ate.

I have been told that ladyboys are quite accepted in Thailand, and I saw something the next day that made me think that this must be true. I finally did get a hold of some Pad Thai from a sidewalk food vendor across from my guesthouse. There were several tables packed with what were probably high school students. The girls were wearing white dress shirts and blue skirts. At the table next to mine, I noticed one girl because she was very tall and had a close-cropped, sculpted hairstyle that you would never see in Cambodia or Vietnam, where most of the girls simply wore their hair long. But soon a couple of other students in skirts showed up at the table, and they were
definitely not girls, and I realized the “girl” with short hair was a boy. The three aspiring ladyboys were sitting with two males and one female, and it reminded me of high school cafeterias in the States, where you have the “alternative” kids at one table, the jocks at another, and so on.

Anyway, I could write about Cambodia and Southeast Asia forever, but this will probably be my last entry, since I’m back in the US. But if anyone has any questions they would like to pose to me, I would be more than happy to answer them. It’s been a great privilege to share my thoughts, and I hope these postings have been interesting and informative. Thanks for reading….